Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Kabir says it is okay if you are deceived by someone (forgive and forget and it will not make any knots inside you. You shall feel hurt but not bound). But be careful not to cheat anyone. If you are cheated, you will be still happy because there is freedom from that bondage which makes one feel tied down with guilt, but by deceiving others you are bound and unhappy. In your heart you will always have regrets and will always bear the heavy weight of your own guilt.

Flummoxed...yeah for a change i wanted to use a new word.
For my condition. That i find myself trapped into. A predicament i can't seem to get out of. Not that i am scared of any disaster or anything at the moment but being human i have my worries nevertheless naturally but more than worries it's the CLOSURE that i need the most.

It's not the first time experience though. i have oft been used and then slapped with accusations for my openness and honesty and then left in the lurch. Family keeps doing it to me...earlier when i was an extrovert...friends found me an easy target to practice their essential skills of survival on me and perhaps on others whom i don't know but yes i was special chosen one. And now when i think in retrospect i am beginning to doubt my own essential skills about judging intentions. But i guess just like me there might be others too for i might not be the only one.
There is no other way to know intentions but to experience it...go through the entire length and breadth of it and then just like me land up with a situation where you cannot seem to see any answers coming as to what really works.

Yes i agree i do lack in those skills that one needs which is to be able to ascertain. If when i am sought for then whether that seeking is for genuine love or for some ulterior motive. Which once accomplished i shall be left in the corner to languish wondering," What did i do wrong?"
i have often asked my own people because i get riled up over this and very emotional and when i get emotional my voice which already is not a soft one rises to a still higher pitch. Nah i am not fighting or anything but it's one animated expression of mine to express how i am feeling.
i mean i cannot whisper softly and speak out when i am hurt or frustrated or feeling hopeless.
Nowadays i just go silent and leave the place but then too i am accosted and asked to explain...

My younger sister keeps telling me that in offering my services to people i go 'OVERBOARD' and later 'COMPLAIN'.
Some in the family especially those in the in laws side say that i do stuff to ' Get A GOOD NAME' or to ' CREATE AN IMPRESSION'.
My son says i am a ' POOR PEOPLE MANAGER'...

And this is the latest just yesterday when in order to make myself happy i showed my latest project to my husband last evening when he returned from office. My project which naturally one can assume would be one related to gardening and plants, this is what he said, " Why are you going on EXTENDING it all the more Shivani..." i didn't hear the rest because i scooted the place more in anger than feeling hurt because plants are my love and i care, nurture and love them. He never does anything but just enjoys the fruits of my labor yet had nothing positive to say about my hard days's labor done all alone. That too so economically. And he is the one who keeps sermonizing about having a POSITIVE ATTITUDE all the time.

Thing is i do and mainly do whatever i do because it is in my intrinsic nature to keep doing stuff. Be it service to one and all, gardening,cooking keeping home and surroundings clean. And i think i have mentioned this in one of my blogs earlier that it keeps me happy and fulfilled.http://shivanidiwani64.blogspot.in/2014/05/lets-forget-change-and-change.html
Nowadays my babies my plants are my happy projects for whenever i am upset with family i turn towards them. Get my grooves back and i am happy again. If not plants then my embroidery...if not embroidery then perhaps blogging or even doing a makeover of something that has gone old...polishing or painting stuff something like that. Sometimes trying out a new dish in cooking too. But here too i have to make something original. So my concoctions turn out better. Thing is i have to do something. Create something of my own. However it turns out to be. Maybe not a masterpiece but it keeps me satisfied and very much looking forward to a new day every day. That's how it works for me. If any good is happening to anyone else is just a trickle down for i don't actually do it with that motive prima facie.

i like doing for people services as i would have done for myself but if or when they start taking undue advantage i also point it out not behind their backs but right on to their face one to one. Not rudely or anything. It can be as simple as, '' Do not put the wet towel on the bed" to " My God the windows are open and you have the air conditioning on, what a waste of energy and electricity" to something like, " Please make her understand her hostel is far off from my residence and if she wants something from me at the drop of the hat i cannot do that..."
Family members who drop by mostly take me for granted and stand me up. i cook a dinner or lunch while they are out with sometimes my driver and car and sometimes otherwise, shopping without bothering to call and tell me if they will be lunching or dining home or not. There are days i am not expecting them to and am ready to hit the sack but that particular day they have to return as hungry as a malnourished hungry cow from their shopping ready to chew at anything even paper.
If i have to point that out i do then i am told i complain. So i really don't know what really works anymore. To quietly work and be used by people or to do and stand up for oneself. This way or that one is blamed.
Thus it becomes all the more imperative for a person like me to do stuff to make me self happy. So that each day is a new day. Not a sob crib story.

Now one new adjective has been added to that long list of adjectives, " REPETITIVE''. That i am often repetitive and that it hurts them to hear it again and again. Funny thing is no one in the family not my husband, my son, my father, my sister, my helping staff or anyone who is around me once stops to ponder about why i have to be repetitive like a teacher.
Funnier still is the fact that no one really does anything for me. i am the one who does. The one who is taken advantage of. The special on whom adjectives are branded upon and then i am told i am being repetitive.
Something has to be said...maybe my mellowing down becoming quiet and sulking did not work. So ANGRY WOMAN is replaced by R word. Hah !
Those who are reading might be getting the impression that i am some sort of a nag but the funny thing is i am not the nag in my family here rather it is the other way around.

Yeah i remember how we would miss out on the drawing of margins and putting the dates when we were just starting out on in our formal education and the teacher would be repetitive in telling us each single day to draw neat margins with ruler and pencil and put the date on the top right corner and write Class Work in the center of the new line and then to take down what she was writing on the black board...
i am being repetitive because my words are getting wasted and not acted upon. i am not heard or listened to in the first place.
Something wrong with me then...i keep thinking. Feeling awful, wanting to walk away from it all but yet remaining where i am. Here with my family.

Adjectives, accusations labelled and what do i do with my not so supportive family.
i plan these Make Yourself Happy projects and go on with my life.
Temporarily yes my projects do make me happy but then this thing like what my husband just did last evening pricks the inflated balloon of happiness and i am back to square one.

Kabir says get cheated but on your own don't cheat anyone. You getting cheated will give you happiness whereas you cheating others will give you sadness.
i have just a couple of days back been cheated once again by someone in the family i nursed back to health. i think it's pointless explaining what happened because i know in the end TRUTH PREVAILS. But at the moment it hurts.
This particular project was to lessen rather put a concealing curtain on what i was going through. The sense of hopelessness and my husband was very much aware of what i was attempting at. To get back my equilibrium. And yet knowing me for 30 years what do i get from him. Not even a smile.

Do i feel really feel how Kabir says...No...not really...
Happy to see my babies no doubt about that but quite sad...
Sometimes just words don't work...for some people it doesn't. Nah it does not mean i will become a real mean machine from now on and go on a rampage. Following Kabir i will definitely not want to cheat anyone but just that may not work to lift my sagging spirits and my trust in service to people in distress. That the Young Lady has accused me should not deter me from doing what i have to do the next time an SOS is sent to me should be my effort and intention. i shall work towards that.
But at the moment i feel like taking a 20 meters restraining order against the young lady who is family.

Now a blogdost once told me to share my looking forward to projects with all once. The picture of the not so attractive almost spiral staircase which has just been completed is what i did a makeover of yesterday with least expenditure, my plants and definitely this which in India is called ' JUGAAD'. Meaning in simple terms indigenous technology. Need i remind all that this three BHK Plus i am residing in is a Govt privilege allotted to my husband and the new staircase, a metal one has replaced the dangerously crumbling to sand and cement of the old staircase after an year and more of pleading sometimes and other times sounding like begging for mercy reminders. Quite a shoddy job done but definitely sturdy to be functional enough for a few years now i presume. God alone knows when the blasted red tapism and favoritism will see it being given the rustproof coat of reasonable paint. But i could not wait do what i could do. More for the need to put a balm to my aching heart than to do a makeover.

Now i know being the very first in the colony others will soon look at my hanging cutie pies and soon follow suit. i will revel inwardly even when none will really give me credits for my creativity and ingenuity. i really don't care when my ideas get copied. Although it definitely feels nice if someone does. But it's not a true world anymore. (My partying at the drop of the hat neighbor has her friends believe that all the decorations in the common staircase are done by her.)
i will then when my idea gets copied switch over to something new... that's the devilish streak in me. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN...COPY ME IF YOU CAN...SING SHIVANI... SHIVANI DIWANEE...TANG TANG TANG TANG TANG TANG TANG TANG TANG...( yeah after that song Sing Mohammad Mohammad Ali and then the strum of the guitar)

i have used L shaped ordinary clamps available in hardware stores for Rs 10 each and the simple unsophisticated metal curtain rings which again from the same store for Rs 50 a dozen.
So that these clamps which were twisted and turned into clips with the help of hammer don't slide off the sloping metal plate of a railing if the staircase i have secured them with ordinary malleable wires which were easily twisted tight below with the help of pliers.
And because they are in season the plants suitable i have chosen for my hanging baskets are Verbena, White Allysium and a couple of Blue Jacomentia ( that's what the nursery man told me the name was of those plants i had bought of the powder blue flowers with white anthers). Soon i shall be hanging my flowering yellow and pink Kalanchoes too.

That's my plan for the day today...to prepare two small baskets hanging baskets. For my two Kalanchoes...Pink and Yellow. Which means not going to the market but foraging from what i already have and see what i can do...
Despite what my husband has said last evening...not that my anger/ hurt has dissipated or anything but this again i am doing to dissipate that anger...and the hurt.
That's me Shivani reporting today...feeling sad but optimistic that this too shall pass but wanting closure once for all...about everything that's been used for her...against her...
Wanting not to be repetitive but flummoxed...Kabir... Kabir not making any sense as yet...but i know for sure will when i shall do...do what i have to do...

now coming to the hanging baskets they look awesome, I would have copied but i dont have a spiral staircase .. the flowers look beautiful ..

KABIR :- well I have this phylosophjy which is me being me as always.. all the sayings and whatever were said by the saints in "THOSE" days depending on their experiences in "THOSE" days .. am i right.. I know we say the saints knew what was going to come and knew all the future and all that pallava but still I think although we should listen and learn from that era but WE got to make some chnges when putting them in context of TODAY.

its like the famous saying "Light at the end of the tunnel" .. WHAT if that LIGHT is the headlight of a TRAIN coming ur way .. surly it is light but that light now is going to run you over tooo ...

and dont feel sad why worry over silly things you go and do what you have to ...

The world is a very very CLEVER place mam, Ican vouch for that those who say they are ur friends seldom are, because I feel if you are my friend then WHY do u need to tell me , I will know. its always the not so good ones who will keep harping about how they are good friends of urs..

ACTIONS speak louder always .. Recently in the last two months I have been in similar situation and suddenly the so called best mates wer not found to be there .. and I was alone tidying the lose ends and getting things done.. and I did it all.. it took time but fine I did all alone ... THAT IS what life is ..

Oh Bikram dear dear Bikram i am also told that of late i have become too emotional...and then for that too folks at home say stuff...you know attributing it to biological changes. Your words make me cry. Not for anything but cry with happiness and joy. i am actually crying.That u r doing this jig with me...sing Shivani Shivani Diwanee and saying words that makes me feel great. Although virtual u feel so real. Like a shoulder i have just cried on. Thank you dost. i needed it so much. <3Bikram how about dropping the mam...makes me feel a buddhi all the more...not that ur not calling me Shivani will make me any younger but i'd rather u accept me as a friend. Pls pls pls.Yeah and don't worry this sadness shall pass...it has to... like u said...'' Light at the end of the tunnel."

Awesome hanging potted plants on your spiral staircase. Make pretty pics! :)Blessed are those who live in your building as they get these treats thanks to you!May the Lord give them sense to appreciate beauty and feel grateful.

When people misunderstand me and judge me and when all the things that you have mentioned happen with me, I remind myself of the ANYWAY poem. That's written for people like me and you!Am sure you must have read it!Am I assuming too much? If not, do read and CHILL OUT :)

There are enough problems with our world. Let us continue being the nice people we are and spread our niceness :) :)Super pics, as usual :)

Thank you Anita so much. Yes I know Anyway...the great poem but when things hit u they just hit u...it takes time...but then as u have said rightly...let us be what we are. Grateful indeed for the kindness emanating through ur words when u appreciate not only my pics but also that u wish for my efforts to be appreciated by all. Yeah Bikram has tried to pep me up because he saw me trying so hard to pep myself up...yeah I made the parody and the lovely kind dost that he is he joined in. I am blessed to have the two of you. Sure am dancing already. Hugzz :):)